


Bullet

by grammarpolice



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A little, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Ghosts, Guilt, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron) Can See Ghosts, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) Whump, Minor Character Death, Science Fiction, Supernatural Elements, Trauma, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 04:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20076058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grammarpolice/pseuds/grammarpolice
Summary: i didn't read this through so don't hesitate to point out any incorrect spelling, mistakes, and inconsistencies





	Bullet

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't read this through so don't hesitate to point out any incorrect spelling, mistakes, and inconsistencies

On a distant planet, where the ground is a soft orange sand that stretches beyond the horizon and the gentle hum of bugs inhabits purple trees, Keith Kogane—supposedly on a reconnaissance mission— stands at the ready, bayard drawn out in front of him, blade glinting a golden kiss when the sun hits it just right.

The wind is a howling banshee, rousing the ground from its gentle slumber with a crude gust that sends it scattering across the battlefield.

Ahead, a galran soldier stands erect, face contorted into a scowl, arms sheathed around the neck of a girl. She looks young--no more than thirteen-- features untouched by the friction of life. Her eyes glow with terror, tears tracking down her white cheeks, mouth creasing in a thin line as she wets her lips with a blue tongue.

In the man’s other arm, imprisoned in a headlock with the barrel of a gun pressed against his temple, is Lance McClain. Sweat beads down his forehead, face flustered, skin flushed as he struggles in the soldiers hold, teeth bared like a rabid wolf.

“One lives and one dies.”

Keith hinges his jaw, fingers constricting around the hilt of his bayard as he deepens his foothold in the ground. “No.”

“You will choose.”

The red paladin inches forward, blade drawn in front of him like a flashlight in the dark.“I will fucking not,” he spits.

“Take one more step and I’ll kill him,” the guard growls, tapping the gun against Lance’s forehead. “You will choose. Who dies?”

“I’m not choosing.”

“Then I will shoot them both.”

Keith sucks in a breath of air, bones going rigid. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why not?”

Unshed tears glisten in Lance’s eyes, cobalt blues lost in a sea of red. The veins in his neck swell, face adopting a mulberry hue at the deprivation of oxygen. “Keith… pick… me,” he breathes.

The red paladin shoots him a look-- almost betrayed-- brows furrowing in unvexed certainty. “No,” he grits.

“So you pick the girl?”

“No, I--”

The soldier flips off the safety, sonance reverberating in the air like a firecracker, and thrusts the muzzle deeper into Lance’s skull, the boy’s skin giving way at the pressure and divoting inward. His breath hitches, sharp eyes screwing closed at the notion as his form shakes against the gun.

“Choose.”

“I can’t.”

“Five…”

“No.”

“Four…”

“Let them go!”

“Three...”

“Take me, instead! Kill me! I choose me!”

The soldier renders a malicious grin, lips curling in fragmented beams of victory. “It doesn’t work like that,” he hisses. “Two…”

Lance locks eyes with Keith and nods, relaxing into the soldier’s hold without further fuss.

The breeze shrieks again, a lost child wailing, tousling the girl’s vanilla mane in front of her face like a curtain.

“One…”

Lance is pushed forward, knees colliding with the sand as the soldier trains the pistol at the center of his head, bullet set to debark in the space between the former’s eyes.

“Last chance, paladin. Who dies?”

“I can’t--”

The blue paladin raises his gaze from the ground, straining his neck around to face Keith, bloodshot pupils boring into the latter’s own like a death watch. He nods his reassurance again, the only contribution he can offer, before compressing his eyelids together and shifting back around to challenge the gun head-on.

Even though Keith can no longer see his face, he can tell that Lance is crying, gentle tremors replacing his usual assured, stoic demeanor the red paladin has grown to--though, he would never admit it-- admire.

The galra constricts his grip around the handle, finger hovering over the trigger, ready to press down.

Keith’s conscious falls to an abyss of darkness. He remembers his first week aboard the castle, still struggling to grasp the fact that he was no longer on Earth and, instead, stuck in the middle of space with three kids from the Garrison whom he barely knew (though, the blue paladin had made it _extremely_ clear from the get-go that he’d already appointed Keith as his rival, arch-nemesis), someone he considered a brother who-- despite what the media claimed-- was, in fact, very much alive, and two aliens-- one a princess, the other her royal advisor.

“I say vol, you say tron,” Lance had said one day, eyes trained on the red and yellow paladins. He smiled, an actual, genuine smile (though, to whom the notion was intended toward Keith was unsure) before chanting, with too much enthusiasm for the latter to fathom, “Vol--”

Keith frowned. “Uh… Voltron?” he tried, plastering on a confused expression as if to further clarify that he had failed to understand the intention.

Lance’s face fell, features darkening slightly. “No,” he sighed. “_I_ say vol, _you_ say tron.”

A round of thunder like a sonic boom rattles the scene, striking Keith from his thoughts. The sun disintegrates behind purple clouds, submitting to their indubitable sovereignty as the sky cries dark rain.

Without constant, with no say over his body like he’s watching from the sidelines, Keith shouts,  
“the girl!”

And he knows it’s selfish, despicable, unspeakable. Who is he to decide one life over another?

The soldier lowers his gun. “What?” he asks, though it seems more of an amused statement than anything.

Lance freezes, paralyzed, neck swiveling around to stare down Keith. He shakes his head almost frantically.

“I-” Keith starts, pausing as the little girl, no more than thirteen, meets his eyes. She doesn’t look as scared anymore. Excluding the quiver of her lip, her expression is almost unreadable, gentle features like an angel void and desolate. Reluctantly, Keith tears his gaze away. He swallows hard, heart hammering in his chest, tears threatening from his eyes. “I choose the girl,” he whispers.

The galran grins. “Very well.”

Then, so fast Keith’s mind can barley compensate it, the soldier spins the girl around and thrusts her to the sand next to Lance, her knees landing harshly on the surface.

He hears it before he sees it. A sound, louder than a jet plane’s roaring engine, bursts through the air, dynamite in a shoebox, shattering the atmosphere with aftershocks that ring through Keith’s ear canal.

A bullet ricochets from the barrel, sailing through the air on hate-fueled bloodlust. It taints the scene with a kiss of death, fractions of copper scattering onto the orange sand as the infiltrator breaks through the girl’s skin. An infectious red stain fattens on her white dress, bullet settled into the tissue of her abdomen, nestling against her flesh, the fabric swelling, struggling to soak up the leakage. She inhales a broken gasp, pale features-- somehow-- lightening a hue, her skin resembling the delicate painting of the moon as she carts a hand to her side. She looks up, tears spilling over the dams of her eyes, water trickling down her cheeks like a rain parade.

The world seems to move in slow motion, a decelerated VHS tape, as she crumples to the sand.

Lance doesn’t move, form shaking, trembling like a petrified child as his pupils chase the girl’s limp figure. She hits the ground, no more than three feet from him, particles of nature dispersing from beneath her at the pressure, the force of the impact brushing against the paladin's armor.

Keith’s bayard falls to the floor with a clatter. His eyes widen, blood draining like a broken faucet from his face as it does the girl’s body, and for a moment he thinks he might throw up. He swallows against rising bile, grimacing as it slithers back down his esophagus and into his stomach before simmering at the pit of his gut.

Then the lucid state washes over the red paladin again and he can’t control his own actions as legs that don’t feel like his own dart toward the girl. He crashes at her side, hitting the ground hard, placing his own gloved hands atop hers and adding pressure to the wound. She screams out, face illuminating a bright red as soft tears track down her face.

He doesn’t hear the roar of an engine as the galran rides away, or the furious screams of the blue paladin.

He doesn’t feel the soft pitter-patter of rain against his helmet.

He doesn’t smell the festering odor of blood.

All he can see is the girl, no more than thirteen, sprawled out on the sand in front of him, same angelic features radiating from her flushed face.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “Fuck. I’m so sorry.” His breath fractures, thick voice smothered under the heaves of threatening sobs.

With pupils that shine bluer than the ocean, she meets his eyes, a sad smile growing across her lips. “It’s okay,” she breathes, form trembling beneath the latter’s hand. “Family… comes… first.”

Keith shakes his head. “He’s not-- he’s not my family. No, fuck, I’m so sorry-- I-I wish it was me.” A sob tears from his throat. “Fuck, I wish it was me.”

She quivers, the metallic undertone of her blood tainting the air, painting the sand a brilliant red. “W-what’ s your name?” she asks.

“Keith,” he says through a sniffle. He swallows hard, trying to ignore the way his diaphragm pulls, retracts, in his chest like a broken string. “What’s yours?” he whispers.

“Yowta.”

“T-that’s a pretty name.”

She smiles again. “Thank you. I-It’s my mother’s.”

Keith nods, unable to do anything else over the pressure in his throat. Yowta’s blood is beginning to seep through the fabric of his gloves, staining his skin in the crusting liquid. He grimaces, heart plunging as he watches the slow rise and fall of her chest.

“Keith?” she asks after a moment.

“Yeah?”

“He-- the soldier-- he killed my family." More tears trickle down her skin and the boy can't tell whether it's from the memory or pain. "Y-You and your family have to beat them.” She coughs. “Promise?”

Keith nods. "Promise."

“Thank you,” she whispers, eyes slipping closed.

Keith's heart stops. “Yowta?” he asks, shaking her lightly.

Nothing.

“Yowta.”

He shakes harder.

“Yowta!”

He tears off his helmet, the fact of whether or not he can breathe the planet's air failing to cross his scattered mind. He hovers his ear above her mouth. No breath of air replies. “Yowta, please!” he shouts. “Please!” His heart races, hammering, pounding against his chest like a bass. “Please! Fuck, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

He pulls his head back, scanning her features with blur-tainted eyes.

He was right.

She does look like an angel. 

"I'm sorry." 

The air in the room is cold.

He grunts, twisting onto his left side and kicking the scratchy blanket off his lower body.

_“One lives and one dies.”_

_Keith hinges his jaw, fingers constricting around the hilt of his bayard as he deepens his foothold in the ground. “No.”_

_“You will choose.”_

He shakes his head, sweat laced hair sticking to the skin on his forehead.

_“Five…”_

_“Four--”_

_The soldier flips off the safety, sonance reverberating in the air like a firecracker, and thrusts the muzzle deeper into Lance’s skull, the boy’s skin giving way at the pressure and divoting inward._

_“--The girl!”_

_“Very well.”_

He’s hot, too hot--

_A bullet ricochets from the barrel, sailing through the air on hate-fueled bloodlust. It taints the scene with a kiss of death, fractions of copper scattering onto the orange sand as the infiltrator breaks through the girl’s skin._

_The world seems to move in slow motion, like a decelerated VHS tape, as she crumples to the sand._

\--everything’s too hot. Like the sheets and the bed, and he’s kicking against the mattress again, growling as his actions receive no avail.

_“Fuck, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!--"_

_“W-what’ s your name?” she asks._

_“Keith. What’s yours?”_

_“Yowta.”_

The mattress seems to divot in as if eating him whole, swallowing him into the darkness of its rock-like depths.

_An infectious red stain fattens on her white dress, bullet settled into the tissue of her abdomen, nestling against her flesh, the fabric swelling, struggling to soak up the leakage_.

_“Yowta!”_

_Nothing._

He groans, neck straining as he thrashes against the bed.

_“He-- the soldier-- he killed my family. Y-You have to promise that-- that you’ll beat them, you and your family.” She coughs. “Promise?”_

_Keith nods. "Promise--"_

_His breath quickens._

_He hears it before he sees it. A sound, louder than a jet plane’s roaring engine._

_She inhales a broken gasp, pale features-- somehow-- lightening a hue, her skin resembling the delicate painting of the moon as she carts a hand to her side. She looks up, tears spilling over the dams of her eyes, water trickling down her cheeks like a rain parade._

_“Yowta, please!” he shouts. “Please!” His heart races, hammering, pounding against his chest like a bass. “Please! Fuck, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”_

Keith shoots up, eyes flying open. Darkness greets his vision and he blinks in time with heavy exhales that submerge his lungs.

Breathe.

In, out.

In, out.

In--

“Hi, Keith,” says a voice.

His gaze darts to the right, eyes widening.

"Yowta?”

**Author's Note:**

> i have absolutely no idea what i'll do with this or if i'll continue. this idea popped into my head while i was watching a show and i have no self-control and instead of doing the responsible thing and writing the whole thing before publishing i decided to post now. this is kinda like a supernatural, ghosty, not scary thing 
> 
> anyway, i hope you enjoyed.


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